Butterfly House at the Norfolk Botanical Garden

Here is the thing about butterflies: sometimes I forget they are bugs and then one flies into my hair and I remember.

But we have a butterfly bush in our backyard and Baby Anne loves to sit on the deck and watch them flitting around, and so today I sucked it up and took her to the butterfly house at the Norfolk Botanical Garden.

The butterfly house is a 10-minute walk from the main entrance of the Garden, or a quick tram ride, and because it was hot, we settled on the tram. Once we arrived, we strolled through the Bristow Butterfly Garden, which is laid out beautifully, and made our way to the butterfly house itself, which is very cool in more than one sense of the word thanks to the misting fan parked by the door. There were lots of little nooks where we could sit and admire the hundreds of bugs butterflies that zipped around overhead. Everything was a sprawl of colors, the nectar plants and the butterflies themselves. I was especially fond of the blue Gossamer Winged Butterflies (Baby Anne tried to catch and eat a beautiful Monarch that alighted on a bush near her outstretched hand, which I assume means it was her favorite of the bunch). 

After we had thoroughly explored the house and watched some butterflies hatching from their chysalises, we went for a ramble through the Butterfly Maze, which a bit trickier than I thought it would be (definitely would be a bit of a hassle if you had to shepherd multiple kids through the kinks, but nobody had to send a search party for me and my one) (for which I was grateful).

Given that and the fact that no bugs flew into my hair, I feel comfortable saying a good time was had by all.